Monday, February 20, 2012

I know that a lot of people are interested in my subscription experiment, and that I should write a little something about it - at the very least to say thank you to all the people who have taken the time to sign up.

I wanted the experiment to be low key. I posted once about it on Twitter, at the weekend (and at a time when most US readers would be asleep), and put a small post on my site under the comic. It's not a Kickstarter, there is no goal, merely a push toward sustainability through the website at a time when I probably won't be able to start putting Bad Machinery book collections out (a substantial part of my projected income in any calendar year) until 2013.

In the week since I announced it, I have raised about £4000 (around $6000). This will make a huge difference later this year when a glut of book work for the above collection will make it difficult to do commissions, freelance or prepare special items for conventions. It will buy me a two or three month holiday from near-constant anxiety.

I expected most people to subscribe at the lowest tier, £2 or $3, but the majority of donations were in the middle. The fact that readers were willing to commit to an annual donation greater than the baseline was incredibly encouraging. That several people chose the maximum annual subscription really surprised me.

I've been looking at sales graphs for a decade, the early spike is pretty much the default setting for things I have done over the years. But that people responded at all, and with such generosity, to a quiet request for support, is something for which I am very grateful.